When viewing static digital images in electronic form, problems can arise due to a mismatch between the resolution of the image and the resolution of the viewing device. Three situations can exist, as listed below:    1. The image being viewed is of a lower resolution than the viewing device.    2. The image being viewed and the viewing device have equal resolutions.    3. The image being viewed is of a higher resolution than the viewing device.
In the trivial case of situation 2 above, no resolution mismatch based problems arise.
In the case of situation 1, if the image is increased in size to occupy more of the viewing device, problems can arise as individual pixels become evident in the image viewed. However, given the resolution of modern digital cameras and images digitised using modern scanners, situation 3 is much more likely. Such a case arises when a low resolution device, such as a television screen, is used to view images captured using typical modern digital image capture devices, such as cameras and scanners. Resizing the image to be viewed in its entirety using the viewing device results in the loss of much of the detail potentially present in the image.
To overcome this limitation, and with a view to enhancing the interest of the presentation of images, in our co-pending United Kingdom patent application no. GB 0104589.7, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference, an automatic rostrum camera technique is disclosed for viewing static digital images. In this technique, regions of interest from an image are selected automatically by a processor and displayed as a series of images. Alternatively, in our co-pending United Kingdom patent application no. 0116877.2, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference, an automatic selection is made of an area of interest and the image zooms on to this selection. In both these cases, assumptions are made regarding generic properties of regions of interest in the image. These are used automatically to determine regions of interest in an image using machine vision techniques known in the art.
However, such a method of displaying images is inflexible and takes little or no account of user preferences.
It is an aim of preferred embodiments of the present invention to obviate or overcome a problem associated with the prior art, whether referred to herein or otherwise.